The Dump

There is a place where your food and garbage go when you do not consume it. It is a filthy place that smells of rotting things and decay. You wouldn’t want to visit because the site of the decomposition would make you ill. The smell would be too hard to handle for a weak stomach. That place is a dump.
There is a dump here in Tegucigalpa where the majority of the waste goes. There are mounds of decomposing garbage that cover a mountain side. It has a sickening odor that can be detected from a mile away. Yet despite the unpleasant characteristics of this place, my heart bled for it.
For in this wretched dump, over a thousand people find hope. To them, someone’s garbage can satisfy a hunger craving so deep that it invokes desperation. Someone’s trash can be converted into a home, if you can even call it that. The people fight each other, hungry cows, swarming vultures and other animal for scraps. They do not live in the dump; they simply survive in the dump.
From only word of mouth, my heart cried out for these people. I wanted to do something more. I knew that they went in and fed them once in a while. My desire was to meet their needs in a better way. We bought some bread and peanut butter and made over two hundred sandwiches. It seemed like such a simple meal and I hoped it would suffice. On our way into the dump, we stopped at a local pulparia, a small grocery stand, to buy bags of water. We bought out the whole store, and still did not have enough. So, Ashley and David hopped on this man’s truck in a successful attempt to purchase more water right out of the back. The scent of the dump had already reached me and dump trucks were steadily streaming up and down the road. I tensed up, for I feared what I was about to experience.
We followed the trucks up a hill a little ways and then up a drive that was lined with shouting dirty faces. My heart sank. The smell grew more and more intense as we climbed the dirty slope into the dump. As we traveled along, we saw people scraping the bottom of garbage bags hoping to quench the pains in their stomach. They had cracked buckets and crooked wheel barrels filled with garbage. We called to them and offered lunch. They a look of hope brightened their filthy faces and ran, as if we might pull away, to the car for a peanut butter sandwich and a bag of water. My eyes began to well up with tears. I didn’t know if it was from the smells or the sights. Either way, I continued to give sandwiches out as quickly as I could. Filthy hands coated grime continued to reach in the car and I knew there was a hungry soul at the other end, a child of God without food and water.
The sun beat down on these people in their compost covered clothing. I could see the desperation in their movements. But I also saw depleted hearts. They moped around kicking and pushing their way through garbage they didn’t want, but needed. A smile was a rarity in such an awful place. But the dirty faces with missing teeth and scruffy beards brightened with smiles provoked by peanut butter. Peanut butter. I take so many things for granted, as I eat whatever I please. Inside, I felt as filthy as the faces that haunted me.
We fed until we had reached as many as we could. Thoughts of prayer for these people filled my heart. I know we didn’t get to feed them all and that pains me. There was a crowd of people, cows, and birds of prey at the bottom of a large hill probing and fighting to find anything to stop the hurt. I don’t understand such injustices in this world, so all I can do is pray to the God who makes good out of situations like this and offer myself.
We left the dump. Two hundred some odd peanut butter sandwiches later I felt like I did very little. I was truly humbled. I was in a solemn mood for the rest of the day and I continued to pray for the dirt covered faces that had not left me. The images and scents I experienced of the city dump outside Tegucigalpa, Honduras will not soon be forgotten.